


The Adventure of the Stone Lady

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Series: The Flint-Vastra Casebook [3]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Case Fic, F/F, Fade to Black, Gen, Geology, Harrogate, Offscreen death of original character, Tourism, Victorian, Yorkshire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 02:50:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21366961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: A Mr James Calloway writes from Yorkshire, in some urgency, to engage our services in the mystery of a body found petrified...
Relationships: Jenny Flint/Madame Vastra
Series: The Flint-Vastra Casebook [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1592248
Comments: 10
Kudos: 17
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2019





	The Adventure of the Stone Lady

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Settiai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Settiai/gifts).

‘Well,’ said Madame Vastra, one afternoon in late September, ‘I don’t know about you, but I should be glad to get out of London for a little while.’

Jenny agreed that she had seen enough sewer monsters for the time being. She could deal with them in their proper place, that being the sewers, but she was less than impressed that one of them had got into the hall... She said, ‘The post, ma’am,’ and opened the letters with the aid of an old glove and a pair of scissors.

Vastra read the one on the top of the pile, and laughed. ‘This may be exactly the thing. A Mr James Calloway writes from Yorkshire, in some urgency, to engage our services in the mystery of a body found petrified...’

‘What, you mean they were frightened to death?’

‘No: it appears that the unfortunate person was literally turned to stone. How very intriguing.’ She read on. ‘Ah. It appears that the petrification is the expected result of natural processes in this particular locality – I should like to see _that_ for myself – it’s how a body came to be there that’s the question.’

‘Oh,’ Jenny said, not sure whether or not Madame expected her to be disappointed.

‘Would you pass me that Bradshaw, please? Thank you. Let’s see. Well, we could make York tonight, and be in Knaresborough in good time tomorrow morning.’

‘Is that where we’re going, then?’

Vastra smiled. ‘I think so, my dear.’

  
They arrived in York in time for a late supper at the Grand Hotel. A further hour’s railway journey the next morning brought them to Knaresborough at half past nine, where they found the town all a-bustle for market day. That, Jenny thought, explained why there were no rooms to be had there that evening. Still, it had its advantages: there was a boy with a now empty cart who was easily prevailed upon to take their bags to Harrogate, leaving them free to proceed to Mother Shipton’s Cave unencumbered.

‘Mother Shipton?’ Jenny asked dubiously. ‘Wasn’t she the one we had all that trouble with a few years ago?’

‘Not her personally, my dear. You will recall that there was some debate as to why the world had not ended in 1881, and it turned out that the prophecy was precisely two decades old, and invented by some charlatan who was very properly devoured by an escaped lynx. No, where Mother Shipton comes into it is that she used to live in the cave near where the body was found. But that was hundreds of years ago and I don’t believe it’s relevant. We are to meet Mr Calloway there: he is the proprietor.’

Mr Calloway himself met them at the entrance to the park.

He bowed. ‘Madame Vastra, I presume? I’m most gratified by your very prompt response.’

She presented her right hand and murmured, ‘Delighted.’

Mr Calloway introduced himself.

Madame Vastra inclined her head. ‘My assistant, Miss Flint.’

Mr Calloway bowed; Jenny acknowledged him with a curtsey.

‘We are eager to keep it from the press as long as possible,’ Mr Calloway explained. ‘Given the circumstances, any publicity could not help but provoke vulgar interest.’

Jenny thought that his tone did not quite match the lofty sentiment his words expressed.

‘And no doubt,’ said Madame Vastra, ‘the sooner the investigation is concluded, the better for your business. It must be vexing to be obliged to keep it closed.’

‘Oh, there’s that, too,’ he admitted. ‘Fortunately it’s a slow time of year – but all the same...’

His true motivation lay, Jenny suspected, somewhere in the middle. No doubt when the news was published the lovers of sensation would queue for hours to see the place where the petrified body had been found. It would be galling indeed for Mr Calloway if he had to turn them away.

‘Quite,’ said Madame Vastra.

‘Unfortunately,’ said Mr Calloway, ‘I had not expected you to be able to come so soon, and Dr Tregarth, who has the key to the place where the body is currently, ah, being kept, is engaged today.’

Jenny raised her eyebrows. Madame Vastra said, ‘Indeed! I had assumed that it would be in the care of the police.’

‘That would have been the ideal solution, certainly,’ he agreed. ‘Alas, they don’t have the facilities.’

Madame Vastra looked doubtful. ‘Perhaps you could show us where the body was found, in the meantime,’ she suggested.

‘It’s something of a scramble,’ he said doubtfully.

‘I am sure that we shall manage.’

Jenny was secretly gratified when they had no difficulty keeping up with him; still more so when his hat blew away. But there was not much to be seen up above the cave, except a cluster of pools. Jenny could hear a babble of voices from below, where a couple of lads seemed to be engaged in tying a top hat so that it was suspended directly in the path of the mineral-rich water that ran over the edge of the rock.

‘I suppose few people come up as far as here,’ Madame Vastra said, with the merest hint of a question in her voice.

Mr Calloway said, ‘There was a tarpaulin over the body: it would have made it difficult to see. It _did_ make it difficult to see.’

‘And who found the body, Mr Calloway?’

He was the picture of innocence. ‘Didn’t I say? I did.’

‘Is that so?’ Madame Vastra murmured.

  
The staff at the Yorkshire Hotel in Harrogate were too well-trained to look askance at Madame Vastra’s somewhat muddied state. As for Jenny, she had had a lot of practice in deflecting awkward questions. In any case, the attics were quiet at that time of day, with, she suspected, most of the maids engaged either in preparing their mistresses for afternoon entertainments, or out in pursuit of entertainment of their own.

She made herself tidy and then went downstairs to see to Madame’s things.

‘Where have they put you?’ Madame asked. ‘I trust it’s comfortable.’ There was a dangerous tone in her voice, suggesting that if it were not comfortable she would find the person responsible and eat them.

‘Oh, I’ve no complaints, ma’am,’ Jenny said hurriedly.

‘Very good. Let us see what is to be seen.’

  
It was, regrettably, not practical for Madame Vastra to make a pretence of bathing in the waters, or even to drink them, but she took the opportunity of walking in the Stray, accompanied by Jenny, and broadening her acquaintance among the visitors.

It was not a fashionable time of year, and those who haunted the town were those who sought to be cured of one complaint or another. Some of them, Madame Vastra learned, had been resident there for several months already. One such was Mrs Corby, a widow from Staffordshire whose husband had been something in the china industry.

Mrs Corby was an avowed devotee of the Harrogate water, and enlarged upon the subject at length, both while they were walking in the Stray, and later in the evening, after dinner.

‘It’s very rich in _iron_, you know, Mrs, ah, Vastra,’ Mrs Corby said. ‘Strengthens the blood, you know. And mine needs it...’ She went into some detail. Vastra, whose blood was in no need of iron at all, found it most instructive.

  
Jenny, meanwhile, established lines of communication within the maids’ quarters. Mrs Corby’s maid was called Baker; the acknowledged queen bee was a stately woman named Stowe, and Florrie, who belonged to the Yorkshire, seemed to be both talkative and reliable. Jenny was soon in possession of various facts that seemed to have some potential bearing upon the case. One lady had disappeared (eloped, Florrie said, with the nephew of a colonel who still lived in the town); _her_ maid was still around the place, though of course not in a position where one could be expected to see her any more... And then there was Miss Pearce, who was inching towards an understanding with Sir Edward, year by year. (‘I suppose there’s no need for them to _hurry_,’ said Florrie.)

Baker was more interested in sensation literature. She maintained that the Yorkshire was haunted (which Florrie strenuously denied), that there was something nasty in the Montpellier Baths, and that Mother Shipton had been onto something.

Stowe found it all very juvenile and tiresome, and surveyed them with a look of repressive disappointment.

  
So passed the first day in Yorkshire. Jenny came down to undress Madame Vastra for the night, and retired, reluctantly, to the attics as soon as she had done so. She did not want to make her companions suspicious.

The next morning was a different matter. Madame Vastra had ordered breakfast to be brought to her on a tray. It was unlikely, Jenny thought, that any hotel would find it easy to serve Madame’s preferred diet, but taking breakfast alone at least meant that she could dispose of anything inedible discreetly.

The tray was clear when she arrived. Madame Vastra consulted her watch. ‘Now. We are to meet Mr Calloway and Dr Tregarth at half past eleven. I have ordered a cab for half past ten...’

‘I can dress you in ten minutes, if we’re quick,’ Jenny said, seeing where this was going, and liking it. Not for the first time, she was grateful for the fact that Madame did not have any hair.

‘That gives us forty minutes.’ As if determined to make the most of it, Madame removed her nightgown with brisk efficiency, and was equally quick to divest Jenny of her everyday clothes. Then she pulled her closer to herself and began to do fascinating things with her long, supple tongue.

‘One moment!’ Jenny wriggled free and snatched up Madame’s wrapper. She fastened it around herself, picked up the breakfast tray, and took it to the door. She opened it and, after glancing this way and that down the corridor, placed it outside the door. She locked it behind her.

‘They’ll think you a little eccentric,’ she said, ‘but never mind.’

‘Better that than to be thought _very_ eccentric,’ Madame agreed gravely. ‘Now, my dear, come back to bed.’

  
The next forty minutes passed in a very agreeable fashion. The cab, which had arrived early, had to wait for them, but only had to wait three minutes, and the driver was well recompensed for his trouble.

  
At Knaresborough Mr Calloway was waiting with them, with a police officer and another man. He made the introductions. ‘Dr Tregarth. Sergeant Flowerdew.’

Madame Vastra curtseyed. Jenny bobbed.

The body had been moved to a small shed, well out of view of the general public. Mr Calloway led the way there, but was obliged to stand back for the doctor to unlock the shed, under the watchful eye of the policeman.

Inside, the shed was dim and gloomy. They left the door open to let a streak of daylight in. Mr Calloway and Sergeant Flowerdew remained outside. A trestle table stood in the middle, with a white sheet covering a suggestive shape.

Dr Tregarth began to draw the sheet back, and then paused.

‘I fear,’ he said, ‘that this isn’t a pleasant sight. While the process of petrification has of course gone some way to arrest the process of decomposition, it couldn’t, ah...’

‘Quite,’ said Madame Vastra. ‘I assure you: neither of us is particularly squeamish.’

He nodded dubiously, and returned to his task.

Jenny had seen worse. The most unsettling thing was the long gown the body wore; it had once been red, and retained a gaudy brightness that persisted even through the pallor of the stone deposit, the effects of the elements, and the gloom of the shed.

‘Of course,’ the doctor said, ‘she can’t have been killed here; or, if she was, I doubt she was conscious at the time.’

‘Why not?’ asked Madame Vastra.

Madame’s idea of the proprieties was hazy at the best of times. Jenny explained, ‘Nobody would come here in a bathing costume, Madame. Not willingly, at least.’

‘There’s another thing,’ the doctor said. Perhaps unwittingly, he had lowered his voice. ‘There isn’t a drop of blood left in this poor woman’s body, so far as I can tell.’

Jenny glanced out of the door. Mr Calloway had advanced a couple of paces.

‘Indeed!’ Madame Vastra was on firmer ground here. ‘And would you say that was what killed her?’

‘It seems plausible,’ Dr Tregarth said, drily. ‘You will appreciate that under the circumstances it’s difficult to draw any conclusion with any certainty.’

‘Quite. Well, thank you, doctor, you’ve been extremely helpful.’

  
When they were safely inside a closed carriage, Vastra said, ‘Jenny. My love. Explain to me about the bathing costume.’

‘It oughtn’t need explaining, Madame. It’s a costume for bathing in.’

‘Ah. And what does that say to you?’

‘If I had to hazard a guess, Madame, I’d say that she’d been taken from the baths.’

‘The baths?’

‘You know, Madame,’ Jenny said, ‘I think Harrogate might have been the right place after all.’

Vastra made as if to speak to the driver, and then seemed to think better of it. She settled herself back into her seat. ‘So you think we find ourselves with a corpse that died in Harrogate and was discovered in Knaresborough?’

‘I do, Madame. And I have an idea who it is.’ She gave a summary of Florrie’s tale of the lady who had disappeared. ‘We ought to be able to find and speak to her maid,’ she added.

‘Excellent. And how would you say...?’

‘How would I say she died? I’ve no idea. How would I say she got there? I think that’s quite apparent.’

Vastra smiled. ‘So do I.’

‘Mr Calloway.’

‘He stands to do rather well out of it, doesn’t he? It’s no bad thing for business, to have a petrified corpse discovered at the witch’s pool. For a respectable business like the baths, however...’

‘But it must have started with somebody at the baths, surely. I very much doubt that he would have been hanging around there in the hopes of finding some unfortunate deceased individual.’

‘Indeed, madame. Besides, I think there are other things that we should look at in Harrogate. Other people we should talk to.’

  
Jenny had given some thought to the question of how to approach the question with Florrie. Deliberately seeking her out at a time when nobody else would be around, she said, ‘I’m glad I’ve found you on your own. I spoke to Madame about the lady who you said disappeared, and she’s very interested in finding out anything about her.’

Florrie looked to be equal parts alarmed and intrigued. ‘I hope I haven’t said anything out of turn.’

‘Not at all. Would you come and talk to her with me?’

‘If she likes,’ Florrie said, doubtfully.

  
Madame Vastra, magnificently veiled, got the name of the lady who had vanished (Miss Livingston), the name of the gentleman she was supposed to have vanished with (Mr Weir), the name of the gentleman’s uncle (Colonel Weir), the name of Miss Weir’s maid (Ellen), and Ellen’s current whereabouts, without much trouble.

Then she pressed something into Florrie’s hand, and Florrie went away delighted.

  
Since the disappearance, Mrs Livingston had been as absent from Harrogate as her daughter.

Colonel Weir had always maintained that he knew nothing about the affair, that the boy was a disgrace, and that he had not seen or heard from him since.

Ellen was considerably more help. ‘_He_ left,’ she said, ‘but she didn’t. They were going to meet at the station. I had to tell him that she wasn’t coming. No loss, in my opinion. He was desperate to get out of the country one way or another, and my guess is that he did. But I don’t know where she is now, any more than I did then.’

Jenny had a nasty feeling that _she_ did. ‘When was the last time you saw her?’ she asked.

‘When I undressed her for the baths,’ she said. ‘The idea was that they’d go about their business as on any other day, until they – didn’t. But she didn’t come out of the bath again. I assumed that this was a part of the plan that I didn’t know about, that she was going to go out the back way or something and get away earlier.’ She flushed at the imagined slight.

‘And then?’

‘Then I went down to the station, to catch the train that I thought they were meant to. He was there. She never came.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ Vastra asked.

‘I thought that she’d changed her mind about going away with him, but I didn’t know what she’d done instead. And of course by the morning it was all over the place that they’d gone away together.’

‘You could have told the police,’ Madame Vastra said.

‘I did,’ Ellen said. Her tone went some way to suggest what the response had been.

  
‘But we’ve still no idea how she died,’ Jenny said afterwards.

‘It all comes back to the baths, doesn’t it?’ Vastra said. ‘Therefore we ought to visit the baths.’

‘It will be awkward,’ Jenny said. ‘You can’t go into them, remember.’

‘Not until the human race broadens its collective mind considerably – or else invents a more substantial bathing costume,’ Vastra agreed. ‘But you could.’

‘What, pretend that I was you?’ Jenny was doubtful.

‘Surely Miss Flint could bathe.’

Jenny shook her head. ‘Not when I’ve already been around Harrogate as plain Flint.’

‘Then let us go to the proprietor, whoever that might be, and explain that in fact you are Miss Flint.’

‘And then what do we tell them?’

‘The truth.’ Vastra smiled. ‘Or, at least, as much of the truth as we need to.’

  
Jenny was still doubtful, but, in the absence of any better ideas, she accompanied Madame Vastra down the hill to the Pump Room and the Montpellier Baths.

Mr Reeves was extremely accommodating. He remembered Miss Livingston well. A pleasant young lady. Such a shock to all her friends and family...!

‘We have been engaged,’ Vastra explained fluently, ‘by those friends and family. The fact that she has not been heard of since her presumed elopement raises some hopes among them. But of course it also raises some fears.’

A strange expression crossed Mr Reeves’ face. ‘But what brings you here?’ he asked.

‘Miss Livingston’s maid tells us that this was the last place that she, at least, saw her mistress. And it appears that she may have been the last person to see her at all.’

‘I see.’

‘It would be most helpful to me if you could explain the layout of the baths. Miss Livingston’s maid tells us that she undressed her for the baths. There is presumably a dressing room...?’

‘I can show you around, by all means,’ Mr Reeves said, with what seemed to be relief. ‘I will ask Mrs Tapworth to take you to the, ah...’ He threw open the door of his office.

Jenny wrinkled her nose. ‘I knew we were onto something, Madame. This doesn’t smell good at all.’

Vastra smiled. ‘I must take you to see a volcano some time. I understand there are a few still extant.’

Mr Reeves was looking slightly offended. ‘I can assure you, er, ladies, that this aroma is entirely natural, and is acknowledged by the best medical authorities to be extremely healthful.’

Vastra inclined her head in a gesture that might have been taken as an apology. Jenny, who had smelt many entirely natural and extremely unpleasant smells in her life, and didn’t see why she should have to pretend that they were good for her, nevertheless kept her mouth shut and followed the manager.

Mrs Tapworth, whoever she was, was not immediately to be found. Mr Reeves rang a little bell, which had no apparent effect.

Jenny strayed forward, as if unthinking. Mr Reeves stepped back. ‘Ah. I had forgotten. Mrs Corby is in the bath. It’s her usual... We had better not...’

At that moment somebody screamed.

‘On the contrary,’ said Madame Vastra. ‘I think we most definitely ought to.’ She opened the door to the baths and strode through. Jenny followed her. Mr Reeves did not.

  
The source of the noise was immediately apparent. Standing in the middle of the tiled floor was a creature about the shape and height of a man, with greyish, slimy skin and a sucker where its mouth should have been. When they approached it hissed, and extended razor-sharp nails towards them. They froze.

Beyond it, Jenny could see Mrs Corby, neck-deep in the bath. She seemed less scared than affronted. ‘Is Mr Reeves there?’ she asked shrilly. ‘What is the meaning of this?’

The thing took a step towards the pool, and then stopped dead, as if an invisible wall stood in its way. It plunged forwards again, and again found its way barred; again, and this time it recoiled as if burnt.

‘Jenny,’ Madame Vastra breathed, ‘do you think you can get in the pool?’

She measured the distance with her eyes. ‘So long as it keeps stopping at nine yards out, yes. What do you want me to do?’

‘Get into the pool.’

‘And then?’

‘That’s all. Don’t you see? You’re the only one who’s in real danger here.’

Jenny nodded. She thought, _Madame knows what she’s doing_, and she ran. The creature stepped away from her as if startled. More than startled. It let out another terrible, high-pitched scream.

Jenny skidded on a puddle and landed in the pool with a splash. She turned to see what was happening.

Vastra caught up Mrs Corby’s walking stick and snapped it in half. With a thin yell, she rushed the creature, holding the makeshift weapon in front of her. It advanced on her, but it was far too slow.

Jenny saw the splintered end of the walking stick protruding through its back, and, as it sank to the floor, permitted herself to close her eyes.

  
Later, on the train home to London, Jenny glanced around to make sure that the door of the compartment was closed, and said, ‘Calloway and Reeves are related, of course.’

‘That much was obvious. Brothers, I should think, from the smell. One assumes that Reeves found Miss Livingston’s body and Calloway agreed to hide it somewhere less embarrassing. I don’t know whose idea it was to make that the petrifying pool.’

‘I didn’t like that,’ Jenny said. ‘That poor woman! They ought to have given her a bit of dignity!’

‘Quite apart from that,’ Vastra said, ‘it put all the other bathers in danger.’

‘That... that _thing_...’

‘I’ve heard of them before. From the Doctor, of course. They’re called haemovores. Not human, but not far from human. They drink blood.’

Jenny shuddered. ‘Do they come from your time?’

Vastra looked offended. ‘Absolutely not.’

Jenny asked, ‘What did you mean, when you said that I was the only one in danger?’

‘My dear, it wasn’t interested in me. It’s after iron: the iron in the ground, the iron in the water, the iron in the blood. But my blood has copper, not iron; it’s useless to that creature.’

‘But what about Mrs Corby? She was unarmed, soaked, swamped in that bathing costume. She couldn't have got away from it.’

Vastra smiled. ‘She didn’t need to. She had a far more powerful defence.’

‘What was it?’

‘Faith in the efficacy of the Harrogate spa water against all ills.’

‘Yes, but that thing wasn’t exactly neuralgia or the vapours.’

‘That doesn’t matter. It was all on Mrs Corby’s side: her confidence put up a sort of psychic barrier that it couldn’t get past.’ She added, thoughtfully, ‘What I don’t quite understand is how that shifted sideways when you started moving. It ought to have either advanced or receded, depending on how the lady felt about your movement. But there was a very definite recoil to the left – almost as if you too believed that the waters would protect you, which I know you don’t. I don’t understand it at all.’

‘Do you not, madame?’ Jenny asked, smiling.

She did not explain.

**Author's Note:**

> The haemovores come from the Seventh Doctor serial 'The Curse of Fenric'. Harrogate spa water, Mother Shipton's Cave and the Petrifying Well are real; as far as I am aware nothing untoward actually happened to the man who faked Mother Shipton's prophecies.


End file.
